Montparnasse

“ With Ruskin, Burne-Jones, and Watts, he had put aside his bowler hat and the neat blue tie with white spots which he had worn on coming to Paris; and now disported himself in a soft, broad-brimmed hat, a flowing black cravat, and a cape of romantic cut. He walked along the Boulevard du Montparnasse as though he had known it all his life, and by virtuous perseverance he had learnt to drink absinthe without distaste. He was letting his hair grow, and it was only because Nature is unkind and has no regard for the immortal longings of youth that he did not attempt a beard. ”

“ Montmartre I visited when I was invited by generous Americans who had money to treat themselves and their friends to a hectic time. The Montmartre of the cabarets and music halls never excited me. It is so obviously a place where the very formal French allow foreigners who can pay to cut up informally. It has no character of its own. Paris, away from Montmartre and Montparnasse, seemed to me to be the perfect city of modern civilization. ”

“ This boulevard is a section of the road round Paris, formed under Louis XV., together with all the southern boulevards, in virtue of letters patent. Until recently the Boulevard Montparnasse was full of restaurants and dancing-places, among the latter the most celebrated being La Grande Chaumière, much patronised by students in the time of Louis Philippe and of Gavarni. Since the construction of the great terminus of the Western Railway the boulevard in question has become transformed. It has been invaded by industry and commerce. ”

“ There is no more constant presence than his on this southern hill-side, where all his days and nights were spent. We seem to see there the short, stout figure, erect and active, the bald head covered with a skull-cap, the bushy red eyebrows, the smooth-shaven face, redeemed from ugliness by its alert intelligence. His walks were down this slope of Mont-Parnasse, which he thought of as the pleasure-ground of the mediæval students of the University, to the quays, where he hunted among the old-book stalls. And he loved to stroll in the alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens. ”

“ He had revenge on his mistress by communicating to her a mysterious disease from which she died in the same manner as Celestin Crevel. [Cousin Betty.]
MONTPERSAN (Comte de) , nephew of a canon of Saint-Denis, upon whom he called frequently; an aspiring rustic, grown sour on account of disappointment and deceit; married, and head of a family. At the beginning of the Restoration he owned the Chateau de Montpersan, eight leagues from Moulins in Allier, where he lived. In 1819 he received a call from a young stranger who came to inform him of the death of Madame de Montpersan's lover. ”

“ He recalled all the circumstances to me, and was amiable enough to tell me that, instead of waning, my beauty had increased.
"It is you, Prince, who embellish everything," I answered him. "I begin to grow like a dilapidated house; I am only here to repair myself."
Less than a year before, M. de Mont-Billiard had lost that amiable princess, his wife; he had a lively sense of this loss, and never spoke of it without tears in his eyes.
"You know, madame," he told me, "my states are, at present, not entirely administered, but occupied throughout by the officers of the King of France. ”

“ He resumed, little by little, his accustomed serenity, and, at the end of the month, appeared to have got over it.
"What," he asked me, "are those buildings with which you are busy in Paris, opposite the Ladies of Belle-Chasse? I hear of a convent; is it your intention to retire?"
"It is a 'refuge of foresight,'" I answered him. "Who can count upon the morrow? And after what has befallen Mademoiselle de Fontanges, we must consider ourselves as persons already numbered, who wait only for the call." ”

“ He had imposed on Louise de la Vallière the bitter martyrdom of following as an expiatory victim the triumph of Madame de Montespan; he now compelled Madame de Montespan to witness the triumph of Mademoiselle de Fontanges. The proud marquise resigned herself to it, at least in appearance. On March 30, 1679, she wrote to the Duke de Noailles: ‘All is very quiet here; the king only comes into my room after mass and after supper. It is much better to see each other seldom but pleasantly, than often with embarrassment,’ Soon even this apparent satisfaction was withdrawn from her. ”

“ MONTBAURON (Marquise de) , Raphael de Valentin's aunt, died on the scaffold during the Revolution. [The Magic Skin.]
MONTCORNET (Marechal, Comte de) , Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, Commander of Saint-Louis, born in 1774, son of a cabinet-maker in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, "child of Paris," mingled in almost all of the wars in the latter part of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. He commanded in Spain and in Pomerania, and was colonel of cuirassiers in the Imperial Guard. ”

“ One has one’s detractors in every conceivable locality. If Madame de Maintenon has met with one at Versailles she would not be exempt from them anywhere else. At Paris, you would be without rampart or armour, I like to believe; but deign to grant me this preference,—I can very well protect my friends. I think the town is ill-informed, and that Madame de Montespan has no interest in separating madame from her children, who are also mine. ”

“ Madame de Montespan, in great alarm, has told me that you wished to leave me. You leave me, my good friend! Where will you find a sky so pure and soft as the sky of France? Where will you find a King more tenderly attached to men of merit, more particularly, to my dear and illustrious Petitot?"
At these words, pronounced with emotion, the artist felt the tears come into his eyes. He bent one knee to the ground, respectfully kissed the hand of the monarch, and promised to complete his portrait immediately. ”

“ Rome, I say, would not give the slightest approbation to this onslaught on the Huguenots.
The magnificent establishment of Saint-Cyr, followed closely upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Madame de Montespan had founded at Paris an establishment for the instruction of young girls in all sorts of fine and ornamental work. Emulation gave Madame de Maintenon higher and vaster views which, whilst gratifying the poor nobility, would cause her to be regarded as protectress in whom all the nobility would feel interested. ”

“ My woman cameo to bring me help, and when my senses returned, I heard the King saying to my intendant: “All this wearies me beyond endurance; she must go this very day.”
“Yes, I will go,” I cried, seizing a dessert-knife which was on my bureau. I rushed forward with a mechanical movement upon my little Comte de Toulouse, whom I snatched from the hands of his father, and I was on the verge of sacrificing this child. ”

“ Having learnt that they had neither terraces nor gardens at the grand monastery of the Rue Saint Antoine, his Majesty made a present to his confessor of a very agreeable house in the district of Belleville, and caused to be transported thither all kinds of orange-trees, rare shrubs, and flowers from Versailles. These tasteful attentions, these filial cares, diverted the capital somewhat; but Paris is a rich soil, where the strangest things are easily received and naturalised without an effort. ”

“ Here was the true Francoise de Montespan, a feline creature crouching for a spring, very far from that humble and soft-spoken Francoise who had won the king back by her gentle words. Madame de Maintenon's hand had been cut in the struggle, and the blood was dripping down from the end of her fingers, but neither woman had time to spare a thought upon that. Her firm gray eyes were fixed upon her former rival as one fixes them upon some weak and treacherous creature who may be dominated by a stronger will. ”

“ They gladly accepted, and each retired to his apartment until the time came for driving out. Dinner was laid, and on the point of being served, when the King, who was on his way from Fontainebleau, suddenly entered my room. He had heard something about a fire, and came to see what had happened. I at once informed him, telling him, moreover, that I had the Duke of York’s father-in-law staying with me at the moment.
“Lord Hyde, the Chancellor?” exclaimed the King. “I have never seen him, and have always been desirous to make his acquaintance. The opportunity is an easy and favourable one.” ”

“ The first blow of the hammer was struck, by some inconceivable fortuity, at the moment when the Duchesse de Fontanges expired. Her death did not weaken my resolutions nor slacken my ardour. I got away quite often to cast an eye over the work, and ordered my architect to second my impatience and spur on the numerous workmen.
The rumour was current in Paris that the example of “Soeur Louise” had touched me, and that I was going to take the veil in my convent. ”

“ A visitor certainly came across here and there a few country-houses of the last century, recognizable by their air of pretension, their balconies of twisted iron, and the tall windows, in which the little squares produce all sorts of green hues on the white of the closed shutters. But Montfermeil was not the less a village; retired cloth-dealers and persons fond of country life had not yet discovered it. It was a quiet, pleasant spot, which was not on a road to anywhere. Persons lived there cheaply that peasant life which is so tranquil and abundant. ”

“ They had been noticed the day before, hanging about and asking for Madame de Montespan.
We stayed that night at the inn, and next day, provided with a stout escort, we reached Saint Germain.
The King regretted not having provided against similar attempts. He rewarded my postilions for their neglect to use the brake (a neglect which, at first, I was going to punish) , saying to me, "If they had put the brake on, you would have been captured and whisked off to the Pyrenees. Your husband is never going to give in!" ”

“ So he and Barnabas Thorpe stood shoulder to shoulder, and worked in the presence of death, unshrinkingly, and as a matter of course; and when the parson's wife and children were struck down, the parson showed what manner of man he was; and the preacher wondered whether all the sleepy, easy-going clergymen he had rather despised had the same depths of courage in them. He thought, also, of his own wife; and reverenced his fellow-worker, as he had seldom reverenced any man before.
The parson unlocked the iron gate that opened on his garden from the churchyard ”

“ He was one of the pioneers in the curio business, along with the Popinots, Ponses, and the Remonencqs. This kind of business afterwards developed enormously. [Cousin Pons.]
MONTAURAN (Marquis Alophonse de) , was, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, connected with nearly all of the well-known Royalist intrigues in France and elsewhere. He frequently visited, along with Flamet de la Billardiere and the Comte de Fontaine, the home of Ragon, the perfumer, who was proprietor of the "Reine des Roses," from which went forth the Royalist correspondence between the West and Paris. ”

“ Greenbriar is a straggling little town, built around a large common meadow. Mifflin's general plan in towns, he had told me, was to halt Parnassus in front of the principal store or hotel, and when a little throng had gathered he would put up the flaps of the van, distribute his cards, and deliver a harangue on the value of good books. ”

“ They are minded to hold many pleasant festivals in your honour; you may count upon having a veritable Court. Here it is that you will meet the old Warnais nobility that followed Henri IV. and placed the sceptre in his hand. Messieurs de Grammont and de Biron are our neighbours; their grim castles dominate the whole district, so that they seem like kings.
Our Chateau de Montespan will offer you something less severe; the additions made for my mother twenty years ago are infinitely better than anything that you will leave behind you in Paris. ”

“ Montespan found a supporter in his uncle the Archbishop of Sens. ‘When the king’s passion was known,’ says the Abbé Boileau, brother of the poet, ‘the archbishop sentenced to public penance a woman of the town who lived as the marchioness, his niece, was living, in open concubinage, and he caused the publication in his diocese of the old canons against the violation of the religious law.’ The diocese of Sens included Fontainebleau, where the court was then held. Madame de Montespan was compelled to take her departure in confusion. ”

“ M. de Meaux had her pursued, but as she threatened to kill herself if she were taken back to the Abbey of Notre Dame, the prelate wrote to M. Bontems, that is to say, to the real father, and poor Opportune was taken to Moret, a convent of Benedictines, in the forest of Fontainebleau. There they took the course of lavishing care, and kindness, and attentions on her. But as her destiny, written in her cradle, was an irrevocable sentence, she was finally made to take the veil, which suited her admirably, and which she wears with an infinite despair. ”

“ Madame de Montespan retained her ascendency longer for she had talents as well as physical beauty; she was the most prodigal and imperious of all the women that ever triumphed over the weakness of man. She reigned when Louis was in all the pride of manhood and at the summit of his greatness and fame,--accompanying him in his military expeditions, presiding at his fetes, receiving the incense of nobles, the channel of court favor, the dispenser of honors but not of offices ”

“ The moment of her triumph approaches; Louis is about to lead her out for the minuet, and so proclaim her queen of the festival. She smiles ineffably; in her eagerness, she almost, rises from her tabouret to meet him, but—what can he intend to do? Has he not seen her?—He turns away, and—now he extends his hand to another!
De Montespan was perfectly overwhelmed, and, all etiquette forgetting, she actually rose from her seat and took a step forward, that she might see who was the person that had been so singularly honored by the king. ”